Reasons for Crossdressing

The author of this essay has some interesting thoughts on the subject:

My own speculation is that men cross-dress for a variety of reasons. (And it's generally men, since women can be "masculine" in everyday life without overtly stepping out of society's gender role.) The reasons include:

- Submissives -- They're most visibly prevalent in the BDSM scene. Their primary kick is submission and what could be more "humiliating" than being emasculated. However, forced femme is a pretty common fantasy among both CDs and TSs, and I think that it's way for T-girls to avoid guilt and shame (similar to women who have rape fantasies to cope with anxiety about their sexuality), and it may also be a wish-fulfillment rewriting their childhoods where they were forced homme.

- Fetishism -- Since most of us start dressing around adolescence, I think that's probably a common spark, even if the tinder was laid by other causes. (Some CDs do start in childhood and I can't really speak to what starts it for them, since that's not my own story.) Not surprising, since given my teenage hormones _anything_ having to to do with girls had sexual overtones. But there's studies showing this driver often fades over time.

However it does seem like a number of girls do have an "embracing their inner slut" aspect. This might have a couple causes. First, underneath the dress, we've still got testosterone-fueled sex drives. Second, since of lot of girls only get to come out occasionally, they're still teenage girls emotionally and strutting their stuff the way some of the GWs did at that age. Just like the over-done make-up corresponds with the Bozo years of teenage GGs. Especially since there's no parents to say "You're not going out dressed like that!", nor the peer groups who might label you the school slut, both of which cause most GGs to tone things down sooner or later. Third, women still generally control how far things go. So it's a fantasy projection of "if _I_ were a women I'd never say no."

...

I suspect in most cases, there's probably more than one driver -- since there needs to be enough momentum to overcome the self-knowledge that we're about to do something society generally considers strange at best -- and also the main driver depends on circumstances. For example, if I'm out clubbing, it's probably more about looking good/showing off than expressing the softer part of my personality. And I'm sure there's probably other motivations that I've missed. If anyone's got suggestions about other motivations, I'd love to hear about them.

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